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It's unbelievable that with all the creative writing courses out there, that no one teaches the necessity of researching your market before you set pen to paper.

Yes, we all want to be creative and let our imagination go. At the same time, wouldn't it be great to have some of your work published? Even better wouldn't it be awesome to know that you have upped your chances of getting published by around 80% by simply doing a tiny bit of browsing in a library or bookstore?

Here is a way to make sure that there is an interest in your type of story before you pick up a pen or pull out your laptop:

1) Go to the local bookstore and read the writing magazines. Editors actually tell these magazines what they are interested in, in a fairly timely manner. Most of the guess work is taken out for you. You know which editors are looking for what type of stories.

2) Look at the current Writer's Guide. It is filled with editors and publishers looking for fresh material. And guess what? They also tell you what each editor wants and what they are sick to death of.

3) Check out the bookshelves to see which children's books are featured. Is there a trend or pattern? For example the last few years Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl and Charlie Bone have all been hot. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that magical characters have taken kids and editors by storm.

4) Ask kids what their favorite books are. Ask them why they like one over the other. Ask if their friends are into the same books. Model these themes.

There is no need to make over the wheel or hire a psychic to figure out what publishers, editors and your audience - kids, are looking for. Gather this information and apply it to your writing.

Watch the number of your submissions rise, while your rejection letters become few and far between.

(c) Caterina Christakos

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caterina Christakos is the author of How to Write a Children's Book in 30 Days or Less and countless articles both on and off the net. For easy tips on how to write a children's book click HERE

As if I'm not busy enough already, a local director has asked me to write the music for his latest production - and have it to him by the 11th of October.

So on top of the two pitches for TV series we're producing, running Magellan Books and the EWTW and editing my latest novel during the day, I'm composing and recording music in the evenings...

No Rest for the Wicked, as I once sang!

BTW, as well as Lydie M Denier, I'm proud to announce another Hollywood star has chosen Magellan Books to launch her latest book to coincide with her new TV series in October. Cool, or what?

More news on that soon - coming to an inbox near you!

Anyway...

I'm probably one of the last people in the world to read "What the BLEEP Do We Know?"

By now most of the ideas in it are well publicized and known thanks to movies like The Secret and the media blitz that accompanied it a few years back.

A lot of self help gurus are still peddling the Law of Attraction or their version of it - so it's interesting to revisit some of the precepts now that the big splash has more or less passed.

In case you don't know, the premise of BLEEP is this:

Quantum physicists have established that, at the very fundamental level of atomic structure, measurement of subatomic particles seems dependent on - or at least relative to - the observer.

Much as modern physicists hate it, self help gurus (now, oddly, called 'philosophers' in some circles) say this is proof that consciousness affects, even shapes, reality.

And by extension the theory says that, through our intentions and interactions with matter, we actually create our own lives.

On a metaphysical level, ancient cultures and mystical traditions have been saying this for centuries - but only now do we have 'proof' from the scientific community that this may indeed be so.

Of course the majority of serious scientists are extremely upset they've let this particular Schroedinger's cat out of the bag. Some say they've been misquoted - and that the current theoretical ideas about the quantum world are too important to be trivialized by the general public.

BLEEP doesn't agree. One of their main arguments seems to be that this stuff is too important to leave to matter-bound scientists with no imagination. They want this life and perception altering information out there - in our hands - so that we can finally understand exactly how consciousness and our universe rely on each other for their existence.

One of the sections I liked in the book was where Dr Andrew Newberg said that the quantum problem was like discovering we're actually all living on some kind of big Star Trek holodeck - where the information about life's building blocks don't make any sense unless there's some huge computer 'outside' merely simulating our existence.

Of course, any self respecting Christian would say that this huge computer was God - and that we're probably not supposed to fully understand this stuff.

But that aside, if we really can shape our destinies with our thoughts, then this is surely where the real fun starts.

But can we really shape matter? And control our lives?

I guess it's a question of degree. How much control do we potentially have?

The problem is that as wonderful as these ideas sound - they don't appear to actually work to any great degree.

After all, the Global Intention Experiments by Lynne McTaggart have, notwithstanding the hype, been largely disappointing.

Much as we might want to believe it, there's seems no real definitive evidence we can get rich just by thinking about it.

However, having faith, acting upon our dreams and sticking to our goals, now that's what works - and is practically provable.

At the very least we now have some scientific data to act as a back-up to these basic self-help tenets:

That if you really want something, and go after it, then you'll get, not necessarily where you want to go, but most likely where you need to be - to achieve at least some degree of success.

I know this has worked for Robyn and I - and has worked for many of our subscribers.

BTW: did you know that over the last eight years, the Easy Way to Write has fostered over a dozen New York Times bestselling authors? We have their names on our subscriber database to prove it - not that they broadcast this fact to anyone! But I respect that - and their right to privacy.

It's just nice to know we may have helped in some way.

Anyway, I think the main point about the BLEEP factor is that now you have no excuse.

It's clear that the message is to take full responsibility for your actions. Because you just never know how much you really are creating your own reality - and that - and this is the kicker - your lack of success could be ultimately of your own making.

The next time you want something amazing to happen to you, start believing it's at least possible - and take positive action to let the universe know of your intentions.

To quote Star Wars - why not - fiction is just a valid reality as the real thing, isn't it? At least to our subconscious, which can't tell the difference anyway.